Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

Tuesday, January 24, 2017

Peter May - The China Thrillers - The first three in the series now in paperback

I have just read these three, one after the other, couldn't put them down; now I can't wait for the final three to be published later in the year. Details of the three just read follow:

The Firemaker

Peter
May

Published by Hachette New Zealand,
13 December 2016 PBK $24.99 RRP

The first of Peter May's
China thrillers, reissued in paperback with a new introduction from the author.

LI YAN

A grotesquely burned corpse
found in a city park is a troubling mystery for Beijing detective Li Yan. Yan,
devoted to his career as a means of restoring the respect his family lost
during the Cultural Revolution, needs outside help if he is to break the case.

MARGARET CAMPBELL

The unidentified cadaver in
turn provides a welcome distraction for forensic pathologist Margaret Campbell.
Campbell, married to her work and having left America and her broken past
behind, throws herself into the investigation, and before long uncovers a
bizarre anomaly.

THE FIREMAKER

An unlikely partnership
develops between Li and Campbell as they follow the resulting lead. A fiery and
volatile chemistry ignites: exposing not only their individual demons, but an
even greater evil - a conspiracy that threatens their lives, as well as those
of millions of others.

The Fourth Sacrifice

Peter
May

Published by Hachette New Zealand,
13 December 2016 PBK $24.99 RRP

The second of Peter
May's China thrillers, reissued in paperback with a new introduction from the
author.

THE SECOND OPINION

The Chinese police have
once more been forced to enlist the services of American forensic pathologist
Margaret Campbell: this time to investigate a series of four horrific ritual
executions that have taken place in Beijing.

THE THIRD DEGREE

Detective Li Yan is
determined to discover just how one of the victims in particular, an American
diplomat, became caught up in the slaying. And he is arguably even more
determined to have nothing to do with Campbell.

THE FOURTH SACRIFICE

The polarity that once
attracted Yan and Campbell eventually pulls them back into partnership. Yet the
closer they are drawn to the truth, the nearer they come to a killer prepared
to use extreme force to conceal it.

The Killing Room

Peter
May

Published by Hachette New Zealand,
13 December 2016 PBK $24.99 RRP

The third of Peter May's
China thrillers, reissued in paperback with a new introduction from the author.

THE NEW CASE

When a mass grave
containing eighteen mutilated female corpses is discovered in Shanghai,
detective Li Yan is sent from Beijing to establish if the bodies are linked to
an unsolved murder in the capital. Here, Li will be working with Mei Ling,
deputy head of Shanghai's serious crime squad.

THE NEW COLLEAGUE

Mei Ling is a formidable
woman: a fact that is not lost on Li's on-off lover, forensic pathologist
Margaret Campbell. But when Campbell, vulnerable and still grieving the loss of
her father, learns that the victims were subjected to 'live' autopsies, she
knows the case is bigger than her pride.

THE KILLING ROOM

Li, Campbell and Mei Ling
are now entering the arena of a sickening nemesis, and opening a door behind
which lies each of their very worst nightmares.

About The Author: Peter
May was born and raised in Scotland. He was an award-winning journalist at the
age of twenty-one and a published novelist at twenty-six. When his first book
was adapted as a major drama series for the BCC, he quit journalism and worked
on more than 1,000 episodes of rates-topping drama before deciding to leave
television to return to his first love, writing novels. He has received the
USA's Barry Award for The Blackhouse; and in 2014 was awarded the ITV
Specsavers Crime Thriller Book Club Best Read of the Year award for Entry
Island. Peter now lives in South-West France with his wife, writer Janice
Hally.